Zinc as a Necessary Nutrient and its Effect on Plant Growth

Zinc is an essential nutrient element for plants, animals and Humans. It is involved in several biochemical reactions in plant and its deficiency causes low crop yields. Zinc deficiency is common in many soil types, in general, and its correction is costly because of the wide area of cultivated lands suffering of Zn deficiency. Different plant species as well as plant genotypes differ in their response to low Zn growth substrates. The efficiency of plant genotypes to be grown in low Zn or Zn-deficient growth medium is of a great economic importance. This will help for saving high doses of Zn fertilizers, which of economic benefits and also can prevent soil pollution by heavy load of Zn application. Therefore, the selection of high efficient plant genotypes for cultivation in low-Zn soil will be the future strategy for cultivating plant crops in low-fertile soil. This book represents a study to evaluate the effect of Zn sources and concentrations on the growth, morphological characters and chemical composition of three been cultivars grown on sand culture, and also to estimate the best applications of the two zinc sources.